patterns

Match a string against a list of patterns

patterns

Match a string against a list of patterns.

The name of this module was previosuly match-patterns, but Pavel Lang have been generous to give me the patterns name on NPM. If you are looking for the previous module it have been renamed design-patterns.

Installation

npm install patterns

Example usage

Add patterns using the .add() function:

var patterns = require('patterns')();
 
patterns.add('mathias', 'foo'); // a pattern can be a string 
patterns.add(/(tom|thomas)/, 'bar'); // or a RegExp object 
patterns.add('anders', 'baz');
 
var match = patterns.match('thomas');
 
if (match) console.log(match.value); // outputs 'bar' 

The module can also be seeded with an array of patterns if you don't care about a 2nd argument that you can supply to the .add() function:

var patterns = require('patterns')([
  /foo/,
  /bar/,
  /baz/
]);
 
if (patterns.match('foobar')) {
  console.log('success!');
}

API

patterns.add(pattern[, value])

Arguments:

• pattern - The pattern as either a string or a RegExp object
• value (optional) - Returned as part of the match object when calling the .match() function. Can be of any type

If the pattern is a string it will be matched using the murl module. If the pattern is a RegExp object it will be matched as is.

patterns.match(target)

Arguments:

• target - The string that should be matched against each pattern

Runs through each pattern in order and returns a match object for the first match. If no pattern matches null is returned.

Example match object

{
  pattern: '/Users/{name}', // the matched pattern (1st argument to `.add()` function) 
  target: '/Users/watson',  // the target string 
  params: {                 // the named parameters from the pattern 
    name: '...'
  },
  value: value,             // the value (2nd argument to `.add()` function) 
  next: function () {...}   // function to skip this match and continue 
}

Note that if the pattern is a RegExp object, params will be the result of the native <str>.match(<ptn>) function (an array).

The next-function

The match.next function can be used to skip the found match and continue matching the string against the patterns:

patterns.add(/foo/, 1);
patterns.add(/baz/, 2);
patterns.add(/bar/, 3);
 
var values = [];
 
var match = patterns.match('foobar');
while (match) {
  values.push(match.value);
  match = match.next();
}
 
console.log(values); // [1, 3] 

Example: A complete HTTP router

In this example the patterns module it's used as a simple but powerful HTTP route matcher:

var http = require('http');
var patterns = require('patterns')();
 
patterns.add('GET /foo', fn1);
patterns.add('GET /foo/{id}', fn2);
patterns.add('POST /foo/{id}', fn3);
 
http.createServer(function (req, res) {
  var match = patterns.match(req.method + ' ' + req.url);
 
  if (!match) {
    req.writeHead(404);
    req.end();
    return;
  }
 
  var fn = match.value; // expects the value to be a function 
  req.params = match.params;
 
  fn(req, res);
}).listen(8080);

License

MIT